


A Pain That I'm Used To

by kittydesade



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A letter from Melisande to Joscelin Verreuil, thankfully, never sent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pain That I'm Used To

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keerawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/gifts).



I knew what it meant to be Kushiel's scion before anyone in my generation, though no one would credit me with the knowledge. On my third birthday the toy that would have been my greatest delight shattered in my hands, and cut me. I bled over the white marble and there was a great panic in the hall that I had somehow done myself a fatal injury. It wasn't, of course, in all the years since and with all the myriad ways I have turned the thrust of a weapon on myself, however inadvertently, I have never done myself a fatal injury. For which I thank Elua and Kushiel's good graces.

But I knew what it meant to be Kushiel's scion. And when I saw her, I thought that knowledge included having a better idea than anyone what it meant to be Kushiel's chosen.

The whole world knows of Phedre's exploits. How she turned back the Skaldic invasion, how she and her Cassiline Companion stopped the assassination of the Queen in La Serenissima, how she later found and retrieved from a wilderness prison Prince Imriel de la Courcel, a pureborn prince of the blood, my son. Her adventures are written down in the hand of the Queen's Poet, and it is an honor both to read them and to hear them read aloud. Unlike the lines penned by her teacher and patron and, if I dare make the guess, the only father figure she ever knew, Anafiel Delaunay. My Siovalese love, for yes, I did love him. I have loved all those who I most paid attention to, regardless of whether or not I caused them harm. Whether or not they returned that love mattered not, for the reciprocation of love is immaterial to the giving of it. Elua does not give us the choice where and to whom we may bestow our hearts.

Sometimes, he may ease the pain of it. Anafiel and I had our share of happy times together, before the conspiracies settled in earnest. And Phedre and I shared, if not happiness, then at least an understanding of each other which we could not hope to find elsewhere. By the time she and I met I was old enough to feel alone in my understanding of my nature, and she had only just begun to understand hers.

I wished then, and I still do, that I had had more time to teach her. Delaunay's and the boy Alcuin's death forced my hand, but if we had had more time I could have led her to know many things about herself, and without the pain of harsh experience, trial and error.

We are made to give and to receive pain, and to take joy in both sides of the application. Not the base joy of the torturer but the joy that comes with progress in life, for pain is a part of living. Everyone who has lived long enough to reach the introspective wisdom of self-awareness knows that there are little pains, disappointment and accident and the unexpected, and there are great pains of a love unreturned or a loss of a friend. Kushiel's line embraces the balance of that, but because it is not in the nature even of the children of Elua to welcome it we are still regarded as fey creatures. A House not to be trusted, a bloodline to be set apart and regarded as other and treated as a great prize but never brought into a circle of intimates.

How many times, I wonder, though I doubt she would trust me to tell me except in dire circumstance, but how many times has Phedre felt on the outside of things? She keeps to herself, I know, and she has her small circle of confidants but it is passing small. She cares not to reach out or explain herself, and perhaps I would have done the same in her place, but it sets her even further apart than anything the Name of God could have done to her, I feel certain.

And yet, she could have chosen a more varied and rich life. She and I danced around it several times, for years, before she contented herself with what she has.

Had she chosen me, yes, we would have been happy together. Against her and everyone else's expectations, I do know how to make her happy. I would have given her all the challenges her mind could desire, and all of the tenderness too.

Had we been lovers, sometimes I do wonder what Terre d'Ange would have made of us. In the past I thought we might rule our shining nation together, now I wonder if we would not have been content to exile ourselves to whatever estate we chose and spend the rest of our days there in comfort and something approximating harmony. We were never less than contentious lovers, but when the Tsingano lad told me his message I still remember to this day, _that which yields is not always weak_ , later I wondered why that was intimated as a threat.

Her yielding was delicious, understand that. You may never know what it is to feel her body straining under your fingers, stretched to the point where nerves snap and muscles shiver themselves to pieces. There are certain sounds she makes at the height of her pleasure that I have never known her to make with kindness, although you may not believe I loved her with kindness. Do you think she comes wet and pleading to you as she did to me? We soaked the bedding with her sweat before we had even gotten to the flechettes.

You know, I imagine, what every unschooled lover knows, having been in the company for several years of a House-trained Servant of Namaah. You know where to touch and how to stroke Namaah's Pearl till she gives up her secrets, and the timing of gentleness and ferocity. But do you know how she is reduced to pleading for her release with the simple use of a blindfold and a silk cord around her wrists? Can you imagine the torments that can be achieved with words alone, or with simple household objects? Or is that beyond your sensibilities? I could take her in the kitchen, spread her out over the table like a roast to be carved and baste her in her own juices, then serve her up as my evening meal. Yes, I still remember the taste of her on my lips even years later, from the few assignations we shared. Would you remember how she felt, gripping you in urgency, if you were in my place?

I assure you, in that case, that the strength of your own hand would not suffice. There is such a world of difference between the pale fantasy and the awareness that you are the only living warmth in your bed, and having the object of your affections stroking your nether parts to satisfaction. I will own, though I have taken many lovers since then, and loved another as well, never was I so satisfied as when I bent her head to mine and we brought our bodies to that most pleasing of mutual conclusions.

Think on that, then, when you take her to your bed tonight. Enjoy her love and the pleasures of her body, since I cannot and must live through the conjurings of my imagination. Enjoy too the strength of her spirit and the support of her company, for I feel the acute loss and deprivation of these as well. She and I understood each other, you see, Kushiel's Scion and Kushiel's Chosen. Never have I met another who matched me as well as she did, and although she would never speak of it to you whether true or not, you might well ask her if she has ever felt as completely and truly matched and fulfilled as she did when she was with me. Ask her, and see how she responds. See what the look in her eye is. I would wager, were you inclined to play such games with me, that she takes a moment to think on it. In truth, a moment is all my weary heart would require.

But even if you do not, treasure her, Cassiline. Because she did choose you as surely and completely as you chose her, and I would hate to think of her as regretting that, even for the span of a single heartbeat.

Yours in exile,  
Melisande


End file.
